


Three Little Words

by vakarianns



Category: Mass Effect, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Declarations Of Love, Denial, F/M, Falling In Love, I mean y'all know how ME2 starts, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2017-06-10
Packaged: 2018-11-12 06:30:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11156199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vakarianns/pseuds/vakarianns
Summary: The numerous times Shepard thought three very specific words, about a very specific lieutenant. ME1-ME2 because there's no ending like an angsty ending.





	Three Little Words

**Author's Note:**

> Rated M for one section, 'the third time'. It's tame, but also a bit past the T-rating.

The first time she thinks it, it’s casual. The same way the old woman who runs her favorite coffee cart on the Citadel says it to her when ‘Jenna’ tells stories of her third grade class or her windowbox of Earth flowers. All figments of imagination, stories told to an old woman to pass the time and pretend she’s someone else. The older woman always turns it into a phrase, either preceded by a soft chuckle or punctuated with a pet name. Words meant for someone other than Commander Shepard, Hero of Elysium and later First Human Spectre.

The words slip into her brain casually, accompanied by a chuckle that sounds more like a puff of air. She wonders if he can see her mental eyeroll on her face, the smile hidden in her eyes.

He had told a rather awful joke, something to break the monotony of a long Mako drive on a planet made almost entirely of pale pink sand.

The words register in her mind, but she hardly takes notice. Shoves the words to the back of her mind, convinces herself they’re casual enough to not cause any damage.

~  
The second time she thinks it, she’s huddled behind a mass of stone, some broken hunk of a building with a band of smugglers shooting at her from multiple sides. Smugglers who got their hands on heavy weapons.

She had decided to slowly advance on the smuggler leader, who had pinned himself in a corner with good cover. She hadn’t expected him to fire at her when she was only a few arms lengths away, but he had, causing a support pillar to crumble and cave in part of the roof. She had darted to the side just in time to escape being buried in favor of getting blown backwards. She landed on her back, and a piece of concrete attempted to occupy the same space as her right shoulder.

She had wrenched herself free and crawled to cover, but her armor had been breached, and blood was pooling underneath her as she tried to shoot at the two remaining smugglers with her pistol in her off hand.

He appeared next to her in what felt like an instant, medi-gel out and ready to go. He attended to her quickly and with steady hands, like any good field medic. She was grateful, as always, that he was so attentive. He was a good teammate, and he always had her six. Buit with his back turned to the other smugglers, he couldn’t see, and as she opened her mouth to warn him of smuggler #1 looking their way, his biotics flared and the smuggler went flying. The airborne body hit a back wall, slumping down in a heap.

He had never looked away from her shoulder, and only one hand had moved, thrust behind him blindly.

He finished the patch job, and met her eyes. She could see blue give way to brown, and she smiled at him as her mind supplied three words.

In her defense, she had lost a fair bit of blood, and everything was a little fuzzy, but after they had returned to the Normandy, and Chakwas had lectured her for the eighth time that month, she sat in her quarters and thought about those words. She thought about them, and their implications. She tried to rationalize it, but there was no way to. Even in the heat of battle, with adrenaline fueling her, she should have enough sense not to give way to foolish notions. She knew better than to go mooning after her lieutenant. She was in trouble.

~

She thought it a lot more after that, almost unconsciously. When he offered a perspective that effectively solved whatever problem had stumped her for longer than normal. When she learned that asking him for a ‘debrief’ instead of a ‘status report’ caused a blush to creep up his neck. When he opened up and told her more about his past, or his dreams, or his fears, in the quiet seclusion of the mess late in the sleeper shift, when neither of them were able to get any rest. She would catch herself and amend it, add small phrases to lower the impact, make them more casual like the coffee cart woman. She couldn’t let herself think the words unaltered, they had too much power. She didn’t need to think them, let them seep into her mind until they put down roots and became a part of her. She didn’t need to deal with that on top of tracking down Saren.

~

The first time she said it, it’s mumbled, quiet and soft in the early morning cycle. She wakes to find him still in her bed, his quiet breathing and lack of Alliance-issued skivvies the only things to show it wasn’t just a dream. Breaking fraternization regs is a lot easier when you’re already a mutineer and deserter.

~

The next time she says it, he’s awake, and he stares at her with those big brown eyes she could fall into, and she’s terrified that she’s made a mistake. The last man she said those words aloud to had all but broken her heart. It had been a mistake that marred the words for her for a decade. While she knows that Kaidan is a very different man, a much better man, part of her is still that scared teenage girl, hoping that he won’t break her.

He stays silent for a long while, and she has to bite her tongue not to ramble out an apology. She meant it. She’s meant it for a while, and she knows that he won’t say it first. He won’t put her in that position, because he’s still trying to follow Alliance regulations, despite their dalliances in her quarters the night before. He’s a silent stewer, and he’ll quietly wait for her to take point on what their new relationship status is. She won’t lie to him, and he should know how she feels before he has too much time to dwell. Before he thinks that she’s casual about this, about them.

So instead of explaining herself, she claps a hand on his shoulder, armor meeting armor, and turns to the smoking rubble of the Citadel. “Come on, let’s go help the Search and Rescue team”.

~

The next time she says it, it’s after a short kiss in the elevator, in between decks on the Normandy. A fleeting moment that was all their own, before they stepped out and became Lieutenant and Commander again.

~

The third time she says it, it’s again in the dark of her quarters during the sleep cycle, but it’s not quite as quiet. He had coaxed it out of her from between her thighs, and she gasped it out in a rush when her brain wouldn’t supply any other coherent words. He responded by coaxing a different kind of release from her.

~

The last time she says it, the world is anything but quiet. She can hear everything, the beating of her heart, her gasping, desperate breaths, and his voice, rising in panic, over her still functional comm.

She tries to reach the breach in her oxygen line, but it’s in the center of her back, and she’s spinning in a way that makes it hard to get her bearings.

Her lungs ache, and she feels the blood rush in her ears, but she hears him, the first time he says it. It’s desperate, and pained, and while she’d waited and hoped to hear it, this is not quite how she imagined it.

She says it to him, with the last burst of oxygen she has, right before the world goes dark.

~

The last time she thought it was an hour ago, surrounded by the corpses of collector forces, with a hulking, slightly smoking Praetorian marring the landscape of a once peaceful colony.

He was so close to her, just a few feet away. And while she only felt like it had been a few short months since she last saw him, the few new wrinkles around his eyes showed the years it has really been.

The ice in his voice stung, but she didn’t blame him. He never expected to see her again, let alone wearing the enemy’s uniform. She knew he wouldn’t abandon his post or team up with the terrorist organization that had given her a ship and crew, but she wanted him to all the same. Even if she knew he wasn’t that kind of man. He was loyal to the end, and guided by a strong moral compass that rarely waivered. And while he might still care for her, he had most likely moved on. She hoped he had, at least. She hoped he hadn’t spent the last two years grieving for her.

She thought all of this while they spoke, Miranda and Garrus standing awkwardly behind her. She wanted to ask him so many things, but instead she let him go, to search for any remaining colonists and tend to his mission.

As he turned to leave, she stood in place for just a moment. She watched him leave, and she couldn’t help thinking those three words once more. The words that had caused her so much trouble.

_I love you._


End file.
